Exemplar-based image inpainting: Fast priority and coherent nearest neighbor search

Greedy exemplar-based algorithms for inpainting face two main problems, decision of filling-in order and selection of good exemplars from which the missing region is synthesized. We propose an algorithm that tackle these problems with improvements in the preservation of linear edges, and reduction of error propagation compared to well-known algorithms from the literature. Our improvement in the filling-in order is based on a combination of priority terms, previously defined by Criminisi, that better encourages the early synthesis of linear structures. The second contribution helps reducing the error propagation thanks to a better detection of outliers from the candidate patches carried. This is obtained with a new metric that incorporates the whole information of the candidate patches. Moreover, our proposal has significant lower computational load than most of the algorithms used for comparison in this paper.